Death: Soundtrack for the Rebellion – RPS Lanrue died

With “Destroy what destroys you” and “No power for anyone”, the band Ton Steine ​​Scherben provided the soundtrack for the revolutionary part of the 70s. Now the co-founder of the political rock band, Ralph Peter Steitz, known as RPS Lanrue, has died. As his wife confirmed to the German Press Agency (dpa), the musician died after a serious illness on Sunday in Berlin – surrounded by his family at the age of 74. “Die Tageszeitung” (taz) had previously reported.

Tumult was part of the band and the musicians’ lives. The rock band around lead singer Rio Reiser had just been formed in Berlin and appeared together for the first time on the island of Fehmarn in 1970. The Love and Peace Festival there was supposed to be a kind of German Woodstock. To the musicians’ outrage, the box office had disappeared. The political rockers played “Destroy what destroys you” and Reiser got the fans even more worked up. The first single from the album unleashed its primal power: In the general tumult, the stage went up in flames.

“It was brilliant,” RPS Lanrue recalled in an interview with the dpa a few years ago. He founded Ton Steine ​​Scherben together with Reiser, who died in 1996.

Started with covers

Ralph Peter Steitz (Lanrue) and Ralph Christian Möbius (Reiser) had a lot in common. They met in Nieder-Roden, Hesse, in 1966. Lanrue needed a guitarist and had Reiser play a Rolling Stones song. He sang it straight away. As Beat Kings and De Galaxis, they played covers and their first own songs, and were also influenced by the Stones.

Reiser went to West Berlin, Lanrue followed shortly after. In 1969 they wrote “Destroy what destroys you” for the play “Rita and Paul”. The song was directly related to the play. “Every evening a television with a right-wing extremist smashed to pieces,” remembered Lanrue. “We then played “Destroy” to go with it.”

Sound shaped an entire generation

Shortly afterwards, Reiser and Lanrue founded Ton Steine ​​Scherben with bassist Kai Sichtermann and drummer Wolfgang Seidel. Over the years, there were numerous additions, breaks and changes in the line-up.

Claudia Roth is a temporary manager. The collaboration between Lanrue and Reiser resulted in songs “that shaped the sound of an entire generation,” says the current Minister of State for Culture. “With Ton Steine ​​Scherben, they founded one of the most political bands in our country, but one that also stood for great art.”

Music for revolt

In the original, “Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht” has an almost two-minute introduction; after slightly spherical first sounds, an increasingly aggressive crescendo follows with an unmistakable guitar riff by Lanrue. “When I just played it, the mood was there immediately,” the musician described the heated situation in the concerts.

The Scherben delivered the sound of revolt on three albums: “I don’t want to become what my age is” symbolized the generational conflict, the “Rauch-Haus-Song” was the accompaniment for house occupations, “Keine Macht für niemand” stood for the urge for freedom and anarchy.

Much of the playlist about the fight against the establishment took place in Kreuzberg. In divided Berlin, the district was separated from the life of the rest of the western part of the city – Ton Steine ​​Scherben’s battlefield. From the perspective of the “taz”, “The invention of Kreuzberg” is the “historic feat of Ton Steine ​​Scherben”.

Modest fees

The Scherben were supposed to play at many events. The fees were modest, organizers expected solidarity from the band. Reiser, Lanrue and other musicians lived on the “T-Ufer”, a commune on the Tempelhofer Ufer. Open house, lots of visitors, unannounced intruders, police raids.

All of this became too much for Reiser and Lanrue in the mid-70s, and they moved with a small Scherben community to Fresenhagen in North Friesland. There, the fourth album “IV” was created, which even many Scherben fans hardly know. “My favorite album,” said Lanrue.

Not much RAF in Ton Steine ​​Scherben

The Red Army Faction was formed in the year the political band was founded. Visits from RAF members to the Berlin Scherben commune were not uncommon. “They came and went from our place,” recalled Lanrue. Nevertheless, from the musician’s point of view, there was “not much” RAF in Ton Steine ​​Scherben. “Although we got to know many protagonists, we always did our own thing,” said Lanrue. Armed combat and outright terror were not part of it.